


Not Quite Reunited

by Ruusverd



Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [14]
Category: Echoes of the Fall - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, I don't think it's terribly graphic but ymmv, primitive medical treatment written by someone who is not a doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25955218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd
Summary: Geralt's and Yennefer's paths finally meet, but it's less pleasant than they'd probably hoped.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863010
Comments: 11
Kudos: 15





	Not Quite Reunited

Yennefer and Regis arrived at the Tsotec’s back just before dawn near a village of the Laughing Men. Traveling by Bat was certainly the least comfortable way she had ever traveled in either of the two lives she’d lived so far, but they had crossed the Plains faster than she would have thought possible. Certainly faster than Geralt could have managed on foot.

Yennefer approached the village with Regis in tow, and found out with some careful questioning that Geralt hadn’t yet passed by. She was torn between staying put and waiting for Geralt to come to her, and heading up the river in case Geralt joined the Tsotec farther north. The Laughing Men were expecting a trading party from the Horse Society to arrive any day, so she and Regis decided to stay at least until the traders arrived to see if Geralt was traveling with them.

The night after they arrived, Yennefer’s sleep was disturbed by nightmares of running through stone streets carrying something precious while being pursued by an army of rats. She hoped it wasn’t a premonition, or a vision of what was happening back in Atahlan. She told herself it was simply stress and the fact she’d recently spent months chasing down rumors of the Rat cult coming out in her dreams. The nightmare faded quickly and by the time dawn arrived she’d completely forgotten it.

Despite her worry, Yennefer enjoyed speaking to the Malikah of the Laughing Men and her people. She’d never spent much time with the Hyena’s tribe before, but their irreverent, fatalistic view of the world was a fascinating contrast to the formal etiquette and carefully maintained social hierarchies of the Sun River Nation.

The way the women ruled over their men was an advantage to the two travelers, since their hosts all took for granted that Yennefer, as a woman, would be able to keep her rather sinister-looking male companion under control. Regis looked somewhat bemused by their casual dismissal of him, but he seemed to be enjoying the novelty of being ignored instead of feared. Yennefer hoped they wouldn’t have to stay long enough for the charm to wear off for either of them.

A few days later, they were just rising from the midday meal when Yennefer felt a blaze of pain burning in her leg and it buckled beneath her, sending her to the floor with a cry of shock. She grabbed her leg with both hands, panting heavily through the pain. Regis and two of the Hyena women rushed to kneel beside her and push her robe out of the way, pausing in confusion when they found no injury.

Yennefer hissed through her teeth, staring at her completely uninjured leg. The initial flare of agony was fading to a steady throbbing burn, but she felt as though energy was pouring out of her through the invisible wound. She blinked, and for a moment she thought she saw iron mesh covering her clothes. She realized with sudden horror what must be happening.

“Geralt,” she gasped. Her mate was a hunter, a fighter. He’d been injured before and she’d never experienced his pain like this, or felt this horrible draining sensation. Whatever had happened to Geralt, the injury must be mortal, or nearly so for it to affect her like this. “Geralt,” she looked at Regis desperately, not sure what she was expecting him to do.

“Your mate?” the Bat asked, brow furrowing in confusion, “Is your mate harming you?”

“No, no.” Yennefer tried to get up. “He’s hurt, badly. I need to get to him, now!”

Regis put a hand on her shoulder, keeping her in place, “How would we find him? we don’t even know where to look.”

The sound of running horse hooves reached them inside the hut. Yennefer shoved Regis away and got to her feet, ignoring the phantom pain in her leg and running up out of the hut. A Horse messenger had just Stepped and was speaking frantically to the Laughing Men standing guard at the village gate. One of them grabbed the Horse man and towed him over to the Malikah.

“We’re being attacked!” the messenger from the Horse panted, his hands shaking. “Dragons, out of nowhere! They sent me to run for help! Please, send your warriors, and the Horse will repay you!”

The Malikah jerked her head at the guard, who turned and started shouting for the warriors to grab their spears and gather at the gate. “The gratitude of the Horse Society is valuable indeed,” she told the Horse messenger, “and the Dragon has no right to hunt here. I will send a warband.”

The man thanked the Malikah fervently, then went to join the disorganized group milling around by the gates, Stepping and dancing in place impatiently. Half of the warriors stood on two feet and brandished long spears, the other half were Stepped to high-shouldered beasts with spotted hides and short, powerful jaws designed to crush bone. The bronze of their spearheads gleamed in their teeth and claws, and their unsettling, laughing war cries sounded the same regardless of the shape of the throat it came from.

“I’m coming too,” Yennefer insisted.

The Malikah shook her head, “You will only slow them down. You should stay and help the healers prepare to receive the wounded.”

Yennefer opened her mouth to shout at the Malikah, but Regis grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“I will slow no one down,” he said. “I will fly ahead and find your mate, and see if there is anything to be done. I have been a killer, but I am also a healer."

“Then carry me with you. You carried me all the way across the Plains, my weight won’t slow you down.” Yennefer shrunk down to a snake without waiting for an answer.

Regis nodded solemnly, then Stepped, scooped her up, and launched himself into the air. The gathered Laughing Men gasped and recoiled in horror from the spread of massive, leathery wings straight from their darkest legends, then seemed to remember that the Hyena's people prided themselves on not being impressed or horrified by anything. With a deafening chorus of cackling and yelping, the last few warriors Stepped and the whole warband charged out the gate and chased after the dark figure winging its way south.

The Horse Society’s barge was run half aground, while a group of large black lizards tried to push their way on board. The Horse people were fighting with bows on the deck and with bronze-hardened hooves on the shore. A Hawk was repeatedly launching herself high into the air, Stepping to her human form to shoot arrows from above as she fell, then Stepping back to the hawk before she could hit the ground. The mute horses had gone mad with fear, and were smashing their way out of their pen and leaping to shore, charging through man and dragon alike to flee to safety.

Regis opened his mouth in a soundless scream directed at the lizards on the riverbank as he passed over, which vibrated Yennefer’s bones and shocked the Dragons back to their human shape, howling and clutching their heads. The rescue party of Hyenas slammed into them without slowing down, laughing as they tore into their enemies.

With the Dragons thus distracted, some of the Horse people began Stepping, letting the wounded be loaded two or three at a time onto their backs and then running north for the safety of the Hyena’s walls. Regis, unable to use his strange weapon of not-sound again with the defenders and attackers so thoroughly mixed together, landed on the riverbank and released Yennefer from his claws.

She Stepped, searching through the fighting until she spotted the familiar form of Geralt’s white wolf lying by the edge of the water while Plotka danced nearby, ears pinned back and lashing out at anyone who came near. A southern man wearing the armor of the Kasra’s soldiers crouched over him, trying to put pressure on a bleeding wound in the wolf’s hind leg. Yennefer ran to them, falling to her knees next to Geralt. “How bad is it?” she asked the man, deciding now wasn't the time to question why one of the Kasra’s soldiers was here and trying to help Geralt.

“He’s bleeding to death,” The stranger said grimly, “The bite wasn’t that deep, but with the dragon's venom…” He trailed off, shrugging without displacing his hands still pressing against the wound. "At least he managed to Step before he passed out." The air was filled with the cries and shrieks of the fight still raging behind them.

“Get him on the horse,” Regis said, standing clear of Plotka's hooves. “There’s not much I can do here but there might be hope if we can get him back to the village before he bleeds out.”

The southerner nodded and he and Regis managed to drape the wolf across Plotka’s back. The man hopped up behind him to keep him secure, and the Horse took off northwards without waiting for her rider’s signal. Yennefer and Regis Stepped in tandem, by now being quite practiced at traveling together, and flew off after them.

When they reached the Hyena’s village Regis and the stranger carried Geralt to the healers’ hut between them and laid him out on one of the hides spread on the floor to keep the wounded out of the dirt. The wolf roused as he touched the ground, Stepping and lashing out at them with the knife still clutched in his human hand. The river man wrested the knife away from him and leaned the whole weight of his upper body into pinning Geralt’s arms to the ground while Regis started to work on the bite marks in Geralt’s leg.

Regis glanced at Yennefer as she knelt beside him. “There’s no room for four hands to work here,” he told her gently but firmly, “Whatever was happening earlier between the two of you, keep doing it. Try to calm him down so his heart will stop pushing the blood out so quickly.”

Yennefer closed her eyes and focused on her connection to Geralt. Usually the bond lay dormant in the back of her mind, giving her a vague sense of his presence but not communicating anything of his physical or mental state to her. Now it blazed like fire. She imagined pushing strength towards him, not knowing if it would help or if it would even work. She’d never heard of a bond like the one between the two of them before, she had no way of knowing how exactly to use it.

Vaguely she noticed Geralt’s Crow friend, Dandelion-Seeds-Floating, flapping his way into the hut and Stepping. She hadn’t even seen him at the riverbank, and hadn’t noticed him flying after them. He started babbling frantically about something but Yennefer didn’t have time to listen.

She reached over and cupped Geralt’s face in her hands, turning his head towards her and hoping he would recognize her. His pupils were so blown that the gold was almost entirely eclipsed by black, and he panted harshly, struggling against the river man's hold. His skin was always pale, but now it was cold and clammy, and saw that his lips were turning blue.

“Should- should we try to get him to Step?” The river man asked tentatively, “In case he... doesn’t make it?”

“No!” Yennefer said harshly, “He’s not going to die, he doesn’t need to Step.”

“The wound is much easier to treat without fur in the way,” Regis concurred, not looking up from his work. “Human skin is much easier to keep clean.”

“Will you have to cut his leg off?” the Crow fretted.

Regis huffed, “Yes of course, these relatively small wounds won’t seem to close, so cutting off his leg entirely seems like a very sensible idea. That would definitely help stop the bleeding.”

Yennefer ignored Dandelion’s defensive squawking and leaned over to press her forehead to Geralt’s, “It’s me, my love. It’s Yennefer. I have you, it’s going to be all right. Calm down, I have you, it’s all right.” She pulled back and studied his face, searching for any sign of recognition.

His eyes darted back and forth, sliding over her face without focusing. “Vis… Visenna?” he croaked. “Why are you here?”

Yennefer bit her lip and bowed her head briefly, taking a deep breath, “No, Geralt. It’s me, it’s Yennefer. Try to relax, we’re going to take care of you.”

“Look... look at my face, Visenna,” his hazy glare was aimed several inches to the right of Yennefer’s face, “You gave me to the Wolf, look what they did to me.”

“Hush, Geralt, you’re going to be fine, everything is going to be fine,” Yennefer ran her hands over his forehead and hair, trying to ground him.

“See my eyes?” Geralt asked the phantom of his mother, his voice slurring “They’re from you, your eyes, snake eyes, slitted snake eyes in a wolf’s face…” he trailed off into incoherent mumbling.

“Stop, Geralt!” Yen said, putting a hand lightly over his mouth to muffle his words, “Stop talking, just rest. You’re hurt, don’t try to talk.”

“Did he say he had snake eyes?” The river man asked incredulously,

“He’s delirious,” Yennefer said as dismissively as she could manage, “He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He saw me and thought of snakes, it doesn’t mean anything. He’ll see Dandelion and think he’s a Crow, next.”

A sizzling sound reached her ears and the smell of burning flesh filled her nose. Geralt arched under her hands, shouting. He wrenched an arm free, striking the stranger in the face with his forearm before his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp. Yennefer whirled to see Regis pressing a heated knife blade over the worst of the holes in Geralt’s leg. “I couldn’t get the blood to stop and we were running out of time,” the Bat said in response to her shocked expression.

“You couldn’t have warned us first?” the stranger complained, gingerly prodding his nose to check if it was broken. Dandelion turned green and grabbed the nearest bucket to vomit in.

“I am sorry. I was focused entirely on stopping him from bleeding to death, and did not think to warn you.” The Bat checked the smaller teeth marks, which were still bleeding sluggishly but not in large amounts. “At least he’s unconscious, that should help keep his heart rate down.” He stitched what needed stitching and spread some of the Hyena healers’ ointment over the wounds, then started winding bandages around the injured leg. “He should be all right now. I will keep him asleep for a while so that he doesn’t pull anything back open before the venom is out of his system, but as long as the wounds don't fester he will heal.”

Slowly everything going on around them started to filter back in to Yennefer’s awareness. Several other wounded men and women, both Hyena and Horse, were in the healers’ hut being treated in a similar fashion. The healers were moving quickly, ducking around each other with the ease of long familiarity. Outside, she could hear people running and shouting at each other as the rest of the Horse Society and the Hyena’s rescue party arrived. Somewhere out there a child was shrieking hysterically, the high pitched voice cutting through the other voices.

A wave of pure exhaustion hit her, turning the edges of her vision dark. She could hear the others talking, but couldn't pay attention to what they were saying. _I’ll worry abou_ _t it_ _later,_ she thought hazily, _I’_ _m going to sleep now, and worry_ _about it when I wake up._ With her last conscious effort, she Stepped to a small ribbon snake and curled up on Geralt’s chest, letting the steady rise and fall of his breathing lull her to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Komodo dragon venom doesn't attack the nervous system or cause cellular damage like what most people think of when they hear "venom." It's a strong anticoagulant and also a vasodilator, which causes the prey's blood pressure to quickly plummet, sending it into shock so it can't run or fight back. Fun facts!


End file.
